Emma MMF: Daily Diary, vol. 5
Emma, vol. 5
Writer & Artist: Kaoru Mori
Published by: CMX
192 (180) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Vintage: 2005. US edition Sep. 2007.
Translation & Adaptation: Sheldon Drzka
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Design: Larry Berry
Editor: Jim Chadwick
Publisher’s Rating: Teen Plus, for “Suggestive Situations”
isbn 9781401211363
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Premise: Our maid, Emma, and her lover, William, in Full-On, BBC/Masterpiece Theater-style Costume Drama. Class differences and circumstances conspire to keep them apart…
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Review:
Following the Capital Letter Ending! of the last volume, of course it’s time to take a step back from the story (while also prolonging the reader’s anticipation for What Happens Next!) so volume 5 opens with a 2 chapter flashback. It’s a delaying tactic, lest the overall momentum built in volume 4 threaten to overwhelm the reader or precipitate the premature climax of the series.
But, oh, what a delaying tactic: Mori takes us back to 1872, when William’s father Richard Jones is just starting to enter polite society — a very young Richard, in fact, around the age when he was thinking of taking a wife. Of course, as upstart nouveau riche, even in a backwater English county he’s not getting much of a reception. It would take an odd girl to be smitten by such a man,
[Look at that hair, look at that smile. Mori, you do good work.]
What follows in these two compressed chapters is not just the courtship of William’s parents, but also a good chunk of the Jones’s family life: five kids, travails in polite society, health problems, the slow but steady grinding of a genuine, and quite fond, love against the millstone of reality and the steadily hardening will of one Mr. Richard Jones.
Many manga-ka use a shortcut—black panel borders—to denote a flashback. Mori doesn’t; there is a subtle change in art, combining a fair amount of hatching and inkwork with plainer screen tones (I note only two, both plain shades of grey) that combine to make the two introductory chapters seem like faded sepia-toned photographs in comparison to the rest of the books. I really like the effort, and the effect, which is why I bring it to your attention
After that brief, touching opening, though
There is the stark reality of the Morning After. Note: there is no dialogue, no interior monologue, in these two pages, but you know exactly what’s running through Emma’s mind, especially in that second page.
Our two leads had thought themselves separated forever. Now that William knows where to find Emma, and Emma knows William’s heart is true — they start up a fevered corresponce (fevered in Victorian terms) and even over the distance that stands between them, their love grows. Eventually, William takes a chance. Maybe he really did it without thinking, as is suggested in the book: He goes out for a walk, and before he knows it he’s on a train, then seeking out a certain manor, and walking up the drive when he’s spotted from a second story window by a certain maid who doesn’t think, just runs runs runs into his arms…
…
Yes. It’s a touching image.
I really love the reactions on the next pages, though:
I agree, Mrs. Meredith. I agree.
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